Silverchair was one of the biggest bands to come out of Australia. The rock trio made a mark a few years after grunge had taken over. This put them in the unique category of post-Nirvana alternative-rock acts that included the likes of Foo Fighters, Puddle of Mudd, Bush, and Local H.
The group was the first band to have a debut album chart in the top 10 in America since 1982’s Men At Work. Silverchair was also the first Australian band in 5 years to have an album chart in the top 10.
Daniel Johns, Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou Become Innocent Criminals
Vocalist and guitarist Daniel Johns grew up in a musical home. Johns and his schoolmate, a drummer named Ben Gillies, started jamming together as teenagers in 1992 in Newcastle, Australia.
The pair wanted to get serious about music and enlisted bassist Chris Joannou and called themselves Innocent Criminals. They started jamming on Pearl Jam songs before writing their own.
By the spring of 1994, a neighbour of Johns told him about a demo tape contest called ‘Pick Me’ that was being broadcast on the TV show NOMAD. Johns was skeptical, telling Rolling Stone in 1996, “We’d been in competitions before and didn’t do shit. But we sent in our tape.”
The group was one of more than 800 entries into the contest and thought their tape would be lost in the shuffle. One of the show’s judges heard the almost 7 minute long demo of the song “Tomorrow” and was blown away.
The judge who discovered the band was a video director named Robert Hambling who told Rolling Stone Magazine, “…From my point of view, in a competition to find new talent, you couldn’t find a more perfect example than 3 young lads in their bedrooms in Newcastle with a song that, I believed, could be a No. 1 mega worldwide smash hit.”
Innocent Criminals Wins ‘Pick Me’ Contest
The other judges concurred and awarded Innocent Criminals the grand prize, which included a full-day recording session to spruce up “Tomorrow” and a video shoot for the single. By June 1994, the video for “Tomorrow” was being aired on Nomad and the local radio station had added the song to their rotation.
Within a week of the band getting radio airplay, record labels were chomping at the bit to sign the band. Johns’ mother, who managed the group at the time, was contacted by Australian labels including Murmur, who was owned by Sony.
Innocent Criminals Become Silverchair
The band ended up signing a record deal with Murmur Records and released “Tomorrow” under their new band name Silverchair.
A month after its release, “Tomorrow” topped the charts in Australia, selling 175,000 copies. It was estimated that approximately 1% of Australia’s population purchased the single.
By early 1995, the band was playing Australia’s Big Day Out Festival. They played an afternoon slot on one of the side stages and attracted more than 15,000 people, 3 times their performance area’s capacity.
During the band’s rise in popularity, the band members were still in school and their debut album, Frogstomp was recorded and mixed in just 10 days during their Christmas vacation.
Silverchair toured America 4 times in just 8 months on the back of Frogstomp and even landed an opening spot for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Ramones.
Frogstomp was certified Double-Platinum in America, Triple-Platinum in Canada and Multi-Platinum in Australia, thanks to “Tomorrow”. The album peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard charts. Rolling Stone Magazine estimated in 1996, that by the time Frogstomp ended its run on the charts, the trio would earn about $1M each.
“We still think we kind of suck.” – Daniel Johns
Despite the band’s early success, their egos seemed in check. Johns told the LA Times in 1995, “We still think we kind of suck. We’re still learning, you know, and we are improving. The more you play the better you get. It’s just weird to us because there’s a lot of other really good bands here in Australia–bands who play much better than us–that still aren’t signed.”
When it came to the critics, many of them felt the band’s debut album relied too heavily on their Seattle Grunge influences.
The band also got some unwanted press when they were the subject of a murder trial in America. Two teenagers who killed a family in Washington State blamed Silverchair’s song “Israel Son” for inspiring the crimes. The band was later acquitted of these charges.
By May of 1996, the Australian trio re-entered the studio to work on their sophomore album, Freak Show, which took 6 months to complete. Drummer Ben Gillies told MTV, “I think the second album’s always the worst one. It’s the one that says if you’re a one-hit wonder or if you’re a band that’s gonna be here for a long time.”
Released in February of 1997, Freak Show peaked at number 12 on the Billboard charts in America and sold roughly a quarter of the copies of its predecessor. Globally it’s estimated that the album sold about 1.5 million copies and it produced 2 hits, “Abuse Me” and “Freak”.
After graduating from high school in 1997, the Australian band started working on their third album, Neon Ballroom.
“I wrote Neon Ballroom in that time where I hated music.” – Daniel Johns
While Silverchair’s first 2 albums could be called post-grunge, Neon Ballroom represented something much different, incorporating more keyboards and synthesizers. Johns revealed to Junkee.com, “I wrote Neon Ballroom in that time where I hated music. Really everything about it, I hated but I couldn’t stop doing it. I felt like a slave to it.”
In a separate interview with MTV, Johns told the network, “With the previous 2 albums, the lyrics were very focused on the anger I was feeling towards certain groups and sub-cultures of people. And with this album, musically and lyrically, I just wanted to do something that people wouldn’t expect, so I really just focused on things that I was feeling about myself, and psychological issues, and lyrically, it’s a lot deeper and means a bit more to me.”
Daniel Johns Struggles with Anxiety, Depression and an Eating Disorder
Around the time of Neon Ballroom’s release, Johns went public with his struggle with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. He revealed his problems started in 1997 following the band’s tour for Freak Show. After returning home, he took the advice of his therapist and moved out of his parents’ home and into his own place.
During Johns’ time living alone, he isolated himself from the outside world and wrote poetry for 6 months. He revealed to MTV, “I had a lot of troubles with anxiety and had to take medication, because every time I left the house, I would think people had conspiracies and people were after me, and every time I left the house I thought I was going to be beaten up.”
Johns’ eating disorder was captured in the track “Ana’s Song” but thankfully for the frontman, he was able to turn his life around after doctors made him aware that he wouldn’t survive for long if he kept up this lifestyle.
The writing process for Neon Ballroom also proved to be different. The album’s songs didn’t start out with music first, but rather the poetry Johns had written in isolation. Unlike previous Silverchair releases, the music was shaped around the lyrics. The only exception to this album was the song “Anthem”.
After Neon Ballroom, the group parted ways with Sony and signed with two different labels. Atlantic in North and South America, and Eleven, a Music Company for Australia and Asia. Things didn’t seem to end on good terms with Sony. The label released a best-of compilation that the band soon disavowed.
“I wanted an album of colour so we tore up the rule book.” – Daniel Johns
As the band began work on their fourth full-length studio record, Diorama, the band’s songwriting style once again changed. Songs started with Johns writing new material on piano. He learned to work with an orchestra as well, telling Billboard Magazine in 2002, “I wanted an album of colour so we tore up the rule book.”
Touring plans to support Diorama were cut short and dates were cancelled in Europe and North America after Johns, who was 23 at the time, came down with reactive arthritis which prevented him from being able to stand and play guitar on some days.
The lack of touring & changing musical tastes as well as the band’s new sound likely led to its weakened commercial performance. The album only peaked at No. 92 on the Billboard charts in America. The band went on an indefinite hiatus, which lasted for several years.
Silverchair Comes Back Together After Hiatus
The band reconvened in 2005 during a charity gig for Tsunami victims. Three years into their hiatus, the band quietly regrouped to begin working on their last studio album, 2007’s Young Modern. Johns had already written 50 songs that he had briefly considered for a solo project.
The band planned to release a follow-up to Young Modern and started work on the album in 2009, but it was never completed. The group stopped recording part-way through to pursue other side projects. The members are still on good terms though, and haven’t ruled out a reunion.
Silverchair issued a statement in 2011 announcing their indefinite hiatus which read, “We formed Silverchair nearly 20 years ago when we were just 12 years old. Today we stand by the same rules as we did back then. If the band stops being fun and if it’s no longer fulfilling creatively, then we need to stop. Despite our best efforts over the last year or so, it’s become increasingly clear that the spark simply isn’t there between the three of us at the moment.”
In 2018, Johns expressed he had no desire to reform the band, but as recently as May of 2020, a picture of Johns playing electric guitar appeared online, leading The Newcastle Herald speculating that a reunion may be possible.
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